Remember, only about 30 per cent of Americans online are using broadband at home at this time. 30 per cent. Fortunately, broadband is projected to rise to 40 per cent of US households. Yay! By 2008. Oh. Clearly, we're going to be stuck with dial-up for some time to come ... which means that we're going to have millions of users who simply can't keep their computers up-to-date with the latest patches and fixes. . . .
Now, before the Linux users start feeling too superior, let me tell you about the other experience I had. I take care of the computer for Hedy, an 80-year-old Holocaust survivor. She used to use Windows 98, but over time I got more and more nervous about the bazillion security holes on that OS. Finally, when her modem died and had to be replaced, I decided to migrate her over to Linux. She does four things on her computer - email, Web, word processing, and solitaire - so Linux would be perfect for her. And in fact, it has. It's been just fine for her. But I've been pulling my hair out trying to update her computer.Guess what? She was on dial-up. Guess what else? After an initial install of Libranet (my new favorite Linux distro, by the way), I had to download 550MB of updates. Guess where her computer went so I could download those updates? Yup. Back to my house. Now, before the Windows users start feeling too superior, remember, a Linux system typically comes with hundreds and hundreds of packages, so when you update a Linux box, you're changing a potentially immense number of packages, but all at the same time. Windows Update only updates Microsoft's stuff (and a few - very few - third party drivers). Out of those 550MB, a quite smaller percentage of that was for security. But still. Fortunately, Hedy's story has a happy ending. SBC has been aggressively pushing DSL in St. Louis, and it's now available for only $28 per month. Since she was already paying $20 per month for dial-up, it was easy for me to convince her to pay an additional $8 per month for a much faster Internet connection - and less headaches and worry for me (heck, I was prepared to pay the extra $8 per month out of my pocket!).
Read this full article at SecurityFocus
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